Genie Maples, Artist

A Life Gone Lacy

Oil on canvas, 36"x36"

Have you ever watched somebody slowly get better and better at what they do, maybe for years, and then suddenly something seems to click and they take off like a rocket? My friend Genie Maples is one such person. Her studio is down the hall from mine. When she moved in, she was painting large, vibrant, colorful, sometimes jolting abstract paintings. I've watched her work gradually get better and stronger since then. She is a very intuitive painter and works from some deep, non-verbal, but very powerful source. It seemed to me that immersion in our artists' community in Asheville's River Arts District gave her exposure to new ways of thinking about, and making, her paintings. She gained a lot of experience and understanding of her process, the technical and formal aspects of paint on canvas, and most importantly, how to connect her feelings and intuition with the expressive power of paint. So for the past few years, her work has gradually gotten better and better.

Over the past six to nine months, it's like she's hit afterburner. In my own opinion, her paintings have gotten much more sophisticated, sensitive, complex, and powerful. Her newest group of paintings, from which the image above is taken, just blows me away. She's going off in a different direction now and I, for one, am amazed. It's kinda like, "This is one of Genie's paintings? Our little girl has hit the big time?"

Yes, she has. Take a look at her web site and see. Genie's an artist to watch - she's going places.